Leap Into Literacy

“If children can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” Ignacio Estrada

The brain learns by doing. Leap Into Literacy demonstrates how teachers can create active classrooms that are challenging, safe, and relevant to students. It features a wealth of proven strategies and techniques—from role-playing, moving expressively, and working with art, to cooperative drama games, tableaux, poetry cafes, and interpreting text as Readers Theater.

Based on the latest research on how children learn, the book shows teachers how to help their students:

• grapple with problems that interest them and share their new understanding with others;
• read and share texts orally with others;
• represent their new understanding in drama and movement, visual arts, and electronic media;
• share leadership in groups as they talk through their ideas;
• engage in ideas that force them to rethink what they know;
• reframe their understanding about how the world works;
• reflect on how, what, and why they are learning in various subjects.

Leap Into Literacy advocates for classrooms where learning is about more than acquiring information. It argues that even in a crowded curriculum, teachers can capitalize on “teachable moments” and find active, experiential, and inclusive ways to reach more of their students as they create happier and more exciting classroom communities.